A Biologist's Journey
by Golden Keyblade
Summary: It has been many years since the events of Pikmin 3. Researchers from across the galaxy now flock to research stations on PNF-404. For years Eric Ezpil, a Koppaian biologist, has dreamed of going to the planet. This is the journal of what happens when he finally goes there... Rated T for some possible future violence.
1. 1: Arrival and Red Pikmin

**A Biologist's Journey **

**Book 1: Forest of Arrival **

Chapter 1: Arrival and Red Pikmin 

**A/N: Greetings, humans, and welcome to a new project I've been planning for a while: "A Biologist's Journey"! This project was inspired by Deadly Raptor's "Pikmin World Safari", but I plan to use mostly my own Pikmin and creatures. You can read about my custom Pikmin in "Colors"; the new monsters you'll hear about as this story goes on. Also, the story involves my own OC; I'd planned to use this chapter to provide his backstory and details, but I don't feel like it; if I have to do that, I'll get bored and never get to the good part of the story. So I'll leave it at "he's a biologist who's finally getting to study PNF-404" and let the rest unfold in time. Instead of the detailed backstory, I'll just give a quick background in the Author's Note: **

** It has been 200 Standard Galactic Years (about 80 Earth years) since the events of ****_Pikmin 3_****. After decades of bureaucracy and red tape, the planets of Koppai and Hocotate have finally joined forces and formed a united research team to investigate the native life forms of the mysterious planet of PNF-404, the planet of the Pikmin. Research stations have been set up across the surface to study the creatures without interfering, and dozens of orbiting satellites now provide data about what is going on in remote areas. The planet now has regular service to all corners of the galaxy, and the greatest researchers in the Galactic Civilization regularly visit the planet and learn about the spectacular variety of live which thrives on the mysterious world. And now, a new researcher is arriving, one who has always wanted to see PNF-404 in person and is finally getting his chance... **

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Journal Entry #001: Research Station 83B

I can't believe I'm finally getting my chance to explore PNF-404! Ever since I first read about the great voyages of Captain Olimar and the journey of the S.S. Drake, it's been my dream to travel to the planet of the Pikmin and learn all about the incredible variety of life there. When I first heard that the Biological Council had secured the rights to form a team to research the planet, I immediately signed up. It may have taken two years to process my request, but now here I am on the most incredible planet in the galaxy.

But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Eric Ezpil; I'm a Koppaian biologist who has spent the last eight years traveling between planets in the Delta Quadrant, taking notes on so-and-so butterfly and whatever flower the Council asks me to take notes on. But I've always dreamed of traveling to PNF-404, home of the most diverse forms of life in all the galaxy. When I found out my visa had gotten approved, I practically trashed my apartment on Disudrann in my haste to pack for the voyage. A small ship picked me up at the local spaceport, and after a five hour Cosmic drive trip we were in orbit around the planet.

I must say, looking down at the planet which I'd spent so much time reading about gave me a feeling to incredible excitement. Looking down I could see the super-continent which included most of the land on the planet's surface; the rest was in the form of tiny archipelagos and a small second continent on the far side of the planet. As we descended to the surface, I saw us pass one of the orbiting observational satellites which provided data about the entire planet to the various research stations. Soon I would be using that data to research the flora and fauna of this strange world.

As the ship descended still further, the rockets starting to fire to slow its reentry, I noticed that we were landing in what appeared to be a dense forest; I vaguely recognized it as an area known as the Forest of Arrival. _A fitting name_, I thought. In the distance I could see all kinds of biomes and terrains, from jagged deserts to frozen tundra to a massive lake which filled much of the eastern view.

The ship landed on a landing pad outside of the main complex, which was shaped like a large dome. Of course, most of the facility had been placed underground to prevent the structure from interfering with the natural cycles of life on the planet's surface; the dome was used only for entering and exiting, and for equipment which could not function in an underground environment, such as detailed radar devices and the hovercraft field researchers used.

I am currently writing this from the room assigned to me in the underground tunnels that make up most of Station 83B. It's much nicer than the room I had on Disudrann, but I don't think I'll be using it much; researchers deemed to be experienced enough are permitted to take hovercraft out for overnight trips. I intend to prove myself experienced as fast as possible; I have heard that the nightlife on this planet can be quite...hectic.

I personally haven't been able to leave the base yet; as a new arrival, I have to spend five days within the base so I can acclimatize to the new planet, and so they can sterilize all of my belongings to avoid introducing any new bacteria to the planet. However, I have already seen a sort of "sneak peek" at the kind of things I might encounter on this planet. It was on my first day of arrival; George, a researcher who has been here for almost a year, was taking me on a tour of the edges of the base. He showed me the Invisible Fence, a kind of force field which kept hostile fauna from entering the area of the research station. Contrary to its name, it was not invisible: if you looked closely, it was possible to make out a slight shimmer forming a dome over the dome. This was fairly standard practice, but it never ceased to fascinate me. The wonders technology gives us nowadays!

At that moment, several Red Pikmin burst from a bush at the edge of the clearing the station was situated in. They looked exactly like the photographs I had seen in the books on the planet. There were about seven of them, and they all seemed panicked. I was about to ask George why they were running, but suddenly I got my answer: with a roar, a Red Bulborb burst from the bushes behind the Pikmin and came charging after them. The Pikmin let out tiny screams of fear and ran.

I found myself apprehensive of what would happen to the Pikmin. I knew that, when directed properly, they were capable fighters; however, these Pikmin were clearly wild, never having been commanded by a captain. Without skills in combat, how would they survive? I found myself hoping the Pikmin were smart enough to scatter, allowing at least a few of them to get away.

Sadly, the Pikmin did not seem to be smart enough; in fact, they all immediately ran into a corner formed by two fallen logs. At first the Bulborb couldn't seem to believe its luck, but it quickly began to trundle toward the corner, soon blocking the Pikmin in. It seemed in no hurry; lunch, it was now sure, was assured. I winced, sure the Pikmin would be messily devoured.

Next to me, George chuckled. "Don't give up on them so easily," he said.

I was confused. What could the Pikmin do to escape? They were blocked in by the massive creature, and surely a mere seven Red Pikmin wouldn't be strong enough to kill a Red Bulborb. As I watched, the predator advanced. It was large, even for a Bulborb, large enough to swallow all these Pikmin in a single gulp.

Suddenly, something unexpected happened. Without warning, the Pikmin's demeanor changed. Suddenly there was no fear in their stance. One Pikmin, seeming to act like some sort of leader, gave a strange cry I had never heard on the recordings; it almost seemed to be some sort of signal. It turned out to be exactly that: suddenly, a small shadow appeared over the Bulborb's head. It just had time to look up...before the bulky form of the Purple Pikmin came down hard on its face.

I blinked in confusion. Where had that come from? I looked up into the branches of the large tree directly above the clearing and saw, perched there, several yellow Pikmin; the light was blurry, but their large bat-like ears were quite unmistakable. Sitting among them were a handful of Purple Pikmin; as I watched, the Yellows pushed two more of the Purples off the branch and onto the Bulborb. With a cry of pain and anger, the Bulborb reared up and collapsed on its back, dead.

As my brain unlocked, I realized what had happened: _it had all been a trap_! The Red Pikmin had been used to bait the Bulborb, appearing to let it trap them in a corner...but it was a corner they had selected earlier. The Yellow Pikmin were stationed up above, ready to push the Purples onto the predator when it tried to attack the Reds. As I watched, the Reds gave a triumphant cry and gathered around the corpse of the Bulborb, lifting it up and carrying it away back into the forest.

Clearly the Pikmin are more intelligent than I thought. I will have to remember that what I have read thus far about them may not be accurate.

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**A/N: And there you have it! I'll update again soon, and I also now have new chapters of CQ out. Until the next update! **


	2. 2: Wollywogs and Billowing Bloatbugs

Chapter 2: Wollywogs and Billowing Bloatbugs 

**A/N: Chapter 2 has arrived! This chapter will give you a look at some of my custom creatures, and more types of Pikmin will appear! Also, if the Purple Pikmin were a bit OP in the last chapter, it was because they picked up incredible velocity and force from being pushed off the tree; normally they aren't that powerful. It was meant to be indicative of the Pikmin's newly-evolved strategy and intelligence: they knew exactly how to capitalize on the abilities of the Purples and took advantage of it. I'll try to limit the Purple's OP-ness in future, though, since it kind of breaks the world. The easiest way to do this is just to say that Purples, having no Onion (that we know of) are really rare. **

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Journal Entry #002: Research Station 83B

I have just returned from my first field mission. It was more exciting than I could have imagined; everything I had read about this planet couldn't have prepared me for all that I saw on this trip. Here's what happened:

I left the station early in the morning, just as the sun was coming up; the nocturnal creatures were asleep already but the creatures of the day were not yet up. The forest was silent and still, aside from the distant chirps of the Leaping Stringlets. An experienced hovercraft pilot named Franklin had shown me how to pilot the craft, which was essentially a floating glass ball with a chair inside; the chair pivoted in every direction, allowing the rider to see everything around him. The controls were fairly simple, and I quickly caught on to how to fly the craft.

I was bursting with excitement; this was the day I had waited my entire life for! Today I would be allowed among the Pikmin; I would travel out to explore the wilderness of PNF-404, observing the flora and fauna of the strange and beautiful world in their natural habitat. I readied my camera and grabbed a pencil and paper; it was time for research.

The first creatures up and about were the Pikmin. The Onions slowly came down for a landing; I recognized them as the kind of Onion that had first been discovered by Alph and his team 200 years ago, with a transparent shell and an impossible-to-replicate nutrient gel within. The color of this gel represented what type or types of Pikmin dwelled in the Onion. As I watched, a large Silver Onion lifted off from a clearing, just in time for a gray Rock Onion to take its place on the ground. Clearly these Onions, however they worked, had some sort of schedule worked out.

I decided to pick a single Onion and focus on it for the day; that way I wouldn't be overwhelmed by the diversity of this world. After a minute of deliberation, I decided on a plump Yellow Onion which landed near me. As I watched from the air, moving directly over the small clearing, many Yellow Pikmin began to stream from the Onion and gather on the ground below it. They seemed to be coordinating the day's activities; this was another behavior I was unfamiliar with, though it made sense they could communicate enough to plan a day's worth of activities. After all, they had set an extremely detailed trap for a large predator just a few days earlier.

For the next few minutes the Pikmin simply began to collect pellets from nearby Pellet Posies; there was quite a large number, ranging all the way from 1 pellets to a single immense 25 pellet. All the pellets were yellow; I'm unsure whether this was because of some influence of the Pikmin and/or Onion, or whether the Onion landed here because of its abundance of Yellow Pellets. In any event, I soon grew bored of watching the Pikmin dragging pellets back to the Onion, and decided to move on to a Blue Onion I had seen landing farther from the base.

However, as I was about to leave something happened in the clearing below: the Pikmin stiffened. It was as if they had all sensed something at once. All of the Yellow Pikmin suddenly dropped whatever they were doing; most of them climbed back into the Onion, but those on the edges of the clearing quickly ducked into hollow logs or behind rocks. I looked around, but just as with my first brief sighting of the panicked Red Pikmin, I couldn't tell what these Pikmin had seen that I couldn't.

Then I realized: they hadn't seen anything! They must have _heard_ it! I had stupidly forgotten the Yellow Pikmin's exceptional hearing; those big ears weren't just decoration. I quickly turned up the audio feed from outside the ship. As soon as I did so, I heard it: a sound of crashing through the underbrush. It wasn't so much footsteps as it was one long, repetitive stomp. I knew there was only one creature which would make that noise.

Sure enough, a Yellow Wollywog burst from bushes at the edge of the clearing and emerged into the landing site with a loud croak. It seemed to eye the Onion thoughtfully; it began to hop slowly toward it, not stomping as it had on its way to the clearing. I wondered what it sought to gain; perhaps it thought it could force the Pikmin out? Perhaps it merely thought all the Pikmin had left and it could wait at the Onion until they returned; it was a reasonable strategy, and perhaps it might work under different circumstances. I wondered for a moment how the Yellow Pikmin in the log would react.

I got my answer, and it wasn't the one I expected: the Pikmin attacked.

Five Yellows silently slipped out from behind a rock; four more crawled out of an old log. They quietly snuck up behind the Wollywog; the creature had no idea that it was no longer alone. Without warning, the Yellows struck; they lunged onto the creature as one, ferociously pummeling the creature with their tiny fists.

The Wollywog, realizing it had just gone from hunter to hunted, reacted. It lunged into the air, flinging off most of the Pikmin; two intrepid Yellows, however, managed to hang on. The Wollywog plunged back to the ground just as most of the Pikmin were clambering out of the way; four of the tiny creatures, unable to react fast enough, were crushed and killed by the amphibious creature. Encouraged by this, the Wollywog prepared to leap again, but the Yellows had already lunged for it; this time others had run from the logs and joined them, weighing it down so it could not jump into the air or shake them off. The Wollywog clung to life for a solid minute of this non-stop assault, but finally it could not take any more and succumbed.

The Yellows wasted no time celebrating; they quickly picked up the Wollywog's body and carried it the rest of the way to the Onion. Light shone from its base, and the corpse was lifted into the belly of the structure. The Wollywog had completed its journey to the Onion... though not exactly in the way it had planned. It was quite ironic.

I shook my head. Nothing I had read had prepared me for what I was seeing on this planet! Clearly these Pikmin were very different from the ones Olimar and Alph had first encountered 200 years ago; they were stronger, braver, and much, much smarter. They had the ability to strategize and coordinate attacks with each other; they were ready to take on creatures many times their size with no direction. And, as I had already seen, they could set traps. I wondered if the new behaviors I had seen in Pikmin had developed because of Alph and Olimar teaching them combat while searching for ship parts, treasures, and fruit. It seemed plausible, but I would have to do research back at the station to learn how valid my theory was.

All I knew for sure was that I didn't want to get on the bad side of a horde of Pikmin. They had proven themselves to be capable fighters, able to draw prey into a brilliant trap from which there was no escape other than death. Yellows in particular seemed to be masters of strategy; perhaps they, not the Red Pikmin, had orchestrated the Bulborb trap that I had seen sprung. It wouldn't surprise me. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of adaptations a species would evolve to counter the Pikmin's newly evolved intelligence.

As it turned out, I would soon encounter a species that has developed just such an advantage.

I spent the rest of the day flying over the forest, taking notes on various things. There was only one event which I took particular note of: around noon, I noticed some White Pikmin on a hunt for food. Since White Pellets have rarely been observed in nature, White Pikmin have become more aggressive and seek out weaker creatures for prey. Pikmin as predators would until recently have seemed an unlikely juxtaposition, but having seen their ingenious traps I wasn't so sure anymore. The hunting party soon came across what looked like a small, sluggish insect I knew to be known as a Billowing Bloatbug; it looked like a Dwarf Bulborb, only it was more circular, had a flattened body and no visible legs, and was a muddy brown color. Billowing Bloatbugs, which are a member of the bloatpod family and close relatives of Blowhogs, are herbivores and thus are no threat to Pikmin; it was strange to see any kind of Pikmin deliberately attack a helpless creature such as they themselves once were. But it was an unforgiving world; I supposed that what must be done to survive had to be done.

The White Pikmin lunged at the Bloatbug, tackling it to the ground. Even though White Pikmin are poor fighters physically, there were ten of them and they were ferocious. They beat the Bloatbug with no mercy. I was sure that these Pikmin would be victorious. However, just as defeat almost seemed assured, the Bloatbug did something unexpected. It was unexpected to the Pikmin, at least; I had guessed what was coming.

At that moment, the Bloatbug took the action that gave it its name: it inflated. The transformation was so violent it flung the Pikmin off with startled cries. In seconds the once flattened insect had inflated to thrice its former volume, to the point that it now resembled a sphere more than a disk. It had inhaled so much air, in fact, that it was now floating up into the air. The Pikmin lunged upward at it, but it was too late: the creature was out of reach, drifting high up past the nearby plants and up toward the distant canopy; there, upon encountering wind currents, it began to move rapidly off to another part of the forest. Before it disappeared from view, I saw the creature beginning to deflate slightly, preparing to land. The White Pikmin, who had lost sight of it, shook off the confusion and went off in search of less mobile prey.

I wasn't sure how to feel about the Bloatbug's method of escape. On the one hand, it was an ingenious evolution: a simple, efficient way to rapidly escape from danger. The Pikmin had been unable to reach it, and now they would be hard-pressed to track down the creature again. However, it was hard not to feel sad for the creature: it had no control over where it landed. Every inflation was a risk; it just had to go wherever the wind blew it. Who knew if it would land in the forest again, or if the wind would carry it off into an unfamiliar and quite possibly less hospitable biome before it could land? I was sure there was a metaphor somewhere in the story, but I couldn't decide what it represented.

I returned to the base as the sun began to set and the Onions lifted off into the sky; one Orange Onion passed so close to my hovercraft that it almost knocked me out of the sky. Much as I wanted to study the nightlife of this strange planet, my application to do nighttime research had not yet come through. Though I cursed the bureaucracy of it all, it makes sense; the night is dangerous, even for researchers in hovercrafts. It's the time when massive creatures- including flying ones which could endanger ships- emerge from their dens to feed on creatures like Bulborbs. I had seen sketches researchers had made of a certain local creature: a massive batlike creature that, from all descriptions, could swallow a Bulborb in a single massive gulp. There were even rumors that a Plasm Wraith had been sighted in the area, though we scientists tend to be skeptical of any rumor. Still, I agreed with the rule for an additional night research permit.

One interesting fact I have noted: upon showing my notes to George, he made an interesting comment. He was unfamiliar with the predatory behaviors of White Pikmin; he claimed that in his experience, White Pikmin behave no differently from most other types of Pikmin. The behaviors I observed in the attack on the Billowing Bloatbug seemed to be less a species-wide behavior as a sign of desperation. I will have to seek out this group again and try to discover the source of this desperation.

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**A/N: So there you have it! What other discoveries will Eric make? What is the source of the strange behaviors in this group of White Pikmin? Is a Plasm Wraith really loose in the forest? Will Eric ever get his permission to do night research? How many rhetorical questions can I cram into one Author's Note? Find out next time, on... ****_A Biologist's Journey_****! **


End file.
